Thank you, God, for this now
Monday, November 23, 2020
Ana Rodriguez Soto
This may sound strange, but I have to say I miss the quarantine.
I know we're still supposed to be somewhat in quarantine, but I miss the days back in March and April when the world seemed to stop. It was a crazy time, too, in the sense that my work didn't stop. It increased.
But my life did change. I started working from home every day instead of occasionally. This was nice. No more rush to get ready. No more stress of fighting traffic. No more rush to get home in the evening.
Around 4 o'clock in the afternoons, I would pause my work. My husband and I – he's retired – would sit out on our patio – with a drink, yes. Our happy hour. We would have a snack, some peanuts or olives, while sitting outside, watching the lake behind our house. Enjoying the breeze, the sight of ducks and geese crossing the yard followed by long lines of their little hatchlings. It didn’t seem to be that hot or unbearable outside. It was nice.
Then we would come back in, I'd work for a bit longer and then I would start cooking. Our children are no longer home so I'm just cooking for two. When the kids were small, it seemed I had to cook in such a rush. Get home. Run around. Cook. Clean up. But during quarantine it felt so much more relaxing. I actually enjoyed cooking.
We also started the habit of walking every morning. At first it was just a mile or so around our block. Then we began walking to a nearby Starbucks – a 3-mile round trip. Little by little we expanded our walks, especially on weekends when I did not need to be at work. Sometimes we walk as much as six or seven miles, just turning into every cul-de-sac or exploring nearby neighborhoods.
The good thing is we have kept that up beyond the pandemic. We get up at 6 a.m., get out and start walking. And it feels so good to come home and realize that by 8 a.m. I've already made most of my 10,000 daily steps.
But what I think I miss most – even though I continue to work from home occasionally – is the sense of time being stopped. We actually found the time to sit in that patio – the same patio in the same house where we have lived for 38 years, and which we literally only used for Thanksgiving meals once a year. Maybe we used it a little more often when the kids were babies and I was home with them. But that only lasted three or four years.
And there definitely was no sense of just sitting. Quarantine was the first time life didn't feel hectic. I didn't need to rush out and drive somewhere. I had no commitments outside the house. Nowhere I needed to be – except there, right where I was.
So yes, it was nice. And I want to hold on to that feeling of time stopping. The only way to do that as we resume normal life, of course, is to remind myself to be in this moment. Not to be here thinking about what I'm going to do in the next hour or the next month. If I start doing that, I'm trying to catch myself and just say: Hey, stop thinking. Here you are. Right now. This moment.
Thank you, God, for this now.
This reflection was originally shared with the MorningStar Renewal Center's Cafecito with Jesus group that meets via Zoom every Monday through Friday at noon for five minutes of prayer. Feel free to join at morningstarrenewal.org.
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